I, Product: A Belated, Trifling Response

"Belated" is possibly understating things: this is the internet age, after all, and it was over four years ago that Jamie Kellner, CEO of Turner Broadcast Systems, responded as follows to a question about why digital video recorders are damaging to the cable industry:

"Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial... you're actually stealing the programming."

Kellner skillfully maneuvers the situation to pretend that the transaction he's concerned about is one between the network and the viewer. The network provides and viewers both pay and recieve by idly watching. Certainly most people who read the above quotation didn't take it too seriously, either because it sounded so ridiculous or because they took some delight in Kellner's frustration. It's certainly possible that some folks bought the complaint as legitimate, but hopefully more of them recognized its absurdity. After all, there is no transaction taking place between the viewer and the network. There are indeed contracts in place, but they are between the network and advertisers; viewers are the product. Kellner, by identifying as contractual the relationship between viewer and network, implicitly states that we can enter into a binding legal contract simply by being present in front of a television during a certain period of time - a most passive equivalent of signing on the "x."

Advertisers pay great sums of money with the understanding that the networks will manage to coerce a set number of people into watching what is charitably referred to as "content," but should be referred to as "bait." The sole effort of the networks is to seek out viewers, to entrap them. We are nothing more than quarry, and when the mouse manages to remove the cheese from the trap without being trapped, it is ridiculous to complain to the mouse that you had a deal. You must more firmly entwine the bait and the snare. In the context of television this is known as product placement, which is generally undesirable because it exposes the true nature of the system.

Perhaps you are willing to adopt Kellner's rendition of the situation, and consider yourself party to a deal taking place. If this is the case, I beg that you recognize what you are in reality delivering as your half of the bargain. If you decide that each hour of "content" is worth surrendering a few more slices of your brain for, then by all means, return to your television and sign.